Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he decided to pause his tariffs targeting America’s top trading partners because people were getting “yippy.”
Trump abruptly announced Wednesday that he would pause most reciprocal tariffs for 90 days and increase tariffs on China to 125 percent. This came after days of uncertainty in which Trump insisted that he would not back down.
But, in the days following Trump’s announcement last week, trillions of dollars evaporated from the market and increased recession fears.
Outside the White House, Trump told reporters that he decided to pause the tariffs because “people were jumping a little bit out of line.”
“They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid — unlike these champions — because we have a big job to do,” Trump continued. “No other president would have done what I did. No other pres-, I know the presidents, they wouldn’t have done it. And it had to be done.”
